CULT HERO/Roy Hudd: After a long period of uncharismatic characters involved in puerile plotlines, Coronation Street is getting back to basics with more of an emphasis on Northern warmth and whimsical old characters. And they don't come any more whimsical than new Street regular Archie Shuttleworth, the undertaker who professionally sizes up everyone he meets: "Five foot seven. I'm not wrong, am I?"
Hiring veteran stand-up Roy Hudd to play Archie is a masterstroke. He started as a young comic in the dying days of variety in the 1950s, when he was billed as "The Peculiar Person", and began his television career with David Frost in the ground-breaking satirical series That Was the Week That Was in 1964. He's done three Royal Variety Performances, starred in West End musicals, played straight parts in films, and is a regular broadcaster - his News Huddlines, with June Whitfield, has been running on BBC Radio 2 for decades.
Hudd, born in Croydon, Surrey, in 1936, has a classic clown's face: round and laughter-lined with a gap-toothed grin and the hint of sadness and loneliness around the eyes that gives depth to the comedy. But his claim to Cult Heroism comes not from his career as a performer but from a fascination with music-hall and variety that has led to his becoming widely respected as Britain's foremost authority on popular theatre.
It began when, as part of the double-act Hudd and Kay, he appeared on a bill at the Finsbury Park Empire in 1959 with old-timers Max Miller ("The Cheeky Chappie"). G.H.Elliott ("The Chocolate Coloured Coon"), Hetty King ("Last of the Male Impersonators") and Peter Cavanagh ("Radio's Voice of Them All"). Aware that a whole world of gaslight and greasepaint would die along with these ancient performers, he started to collect their stories, plus old 78 r.p.m. comedy records, song-sheets and other music-hall ephemera.
Over the years, he has published a number of books, including Roy Hudd's Cavalcade of Variety Acts and an annotated reprint of Dan Leno, Hys Booke, by the great Victorian "King of the Halls". Without Hudd and his friends at the British Music Hall Society - of which he is president - who would remember Ted Lune ("The Lad From Lancashire"), Harry Korris ("Eeee! If Ever A Man Suffered!"), Kardoma ("He Fills the Stage With Flags") and The Three Aberdonians ("Too Mean To Tell You What They Do")? Who, the churlish among you might ask, would want to?
May it be many, many years before he leaves us to join The Mysterious Werth ("Banana Skin and Stone Manipulator"), The Three Sisters Chester ("Grace, Beauty and Banjos"), Billy Bennett ("Almost A Gentleman"), Tom Mennard ("Juggles With Live Geese"), Juna ("The Human Gasometer") and the rest of his long-departed idols.